Trump wins presidency for second time

One thing that's struck me since Trump was announced the winner is how many Replublican voters are determined to invalidate the opinions of people who voted for the Democrats.

I'm left leaning, but I think jobs in rural areas, inflation, cost of living are all valid concerns that should be addressed regardless of who is in power. I disagree to varying extents with Trump's stance on abortion, immigration and gun control. But I also understand why people have a different opinion to me.

What I see online is a continuing anger towards the left and a determination to not only discredit their opinions, but also punish them for their dissenting views. There is this gleeful perception that it's time for payback.

A very similar thing happened here in New Zealand where we tracked right with fairly dire and predictable consequences, from a left-wing government that was shouldering the blame for a whole lot of macroeconomic issues they had little control over.

It doesn't really matter if they did the right thing or not - enough people were looking to punish them regardless.

The president of US called half of American citizens garbage, that definitely had something to do with it. Hillary pulled the same shit, calling half the country "deplorables". Keep insulting American citizens and see what happens.

Lot of comments about the economy and inflation but I don’t think that explains all of it. Trump grew votes in demographics across the board including traditional Democrat strongholds. Something else was working for him that didn’t work for Harris.

If you look at the past ~15 or so years in the US, it has been pretty constant flip flopping. I think that's a general condemnation of the status quo, and unsurprisingly. For many people the economy just doesn't work for them like it used to.

At the same time, I think the media talking heads put much too much effort into explaining the results, and they basically give the electorate much too much credit. To be blunt, your average voter is not particularly smart, or at least they aren't able to draw a line between cause and effect. Take inflation for example, which many pundits say was the major issue of this election. But if you look at essentially any economist, of any particular political leaning, they will say that Trump's proposed policies (e.g. massive tariffs) are absolutely horrible for inflation. Similarly, at the end of Trump's 1st term, he was absolutely berating Powell for not having even looser monetary policy in 2019 despite extremely low unemployment.

I think it's fine to argue the Dems did a ton of stupid shit (a lot of this I may agree with), but it's pretty clear that the electorate wants a strongman right now, and that's basically the antithesis of what the Democratic Party wants at large. I also think the Dems haven't accepted the fact that there is zero chance a woman from the managerial class will be elected president.